I have a small problem. Due to the generosity of my friends, a few impulse buys and leaving the house for beer events, my beer supply is building up. How can this be a problem? you ask. The problem is that I’m flatting, with all the restrictions that apply in that situation. I have one shelf in the fridge and one in the pantry and they’re filled with food (I like to bake and the ingredients and paraphernalia take up a lot of room). I could keep it on the shelf with my flatmates’ wine, but said shelf gets quite a bit of light (the ancient nemesis of hops).
As a result, all of my beer is stored in a cardboard box at the foot of my bed. It works fairly well – there’s no major fluctuations in temperature, the box keeps out a lot of light and neither of my flatmates knows that it’s there (introducing them to great beer may have been a mistake). But I can’t help but be a little jealous of my friend Tom, who has room in his garage for a deep freeze that is set to chill, or my Dad, who has a basement that is naturally cool. Then, this morning, I made the mistake of putting ‘beer storage’ into Google and became starting dreaming outrageously of a time when I’m free of flatmates and possess money and room. Here are my top three beer storage dreams:
3) Storing in Style
This odd-looking fridge was designed by Stefan Buchberger and it’s original purpose was to prevent fights between flatmates by segregating their food. I think it would be much better utilised as a beer fridge, with separate compartments at the right temperatures for different beer.
2) Going Natural
A beer cave. The ultimate in natural beer storage. Or not so natural in the photo above – the cave is actually an abandoned goldmine in Colorado. Beer storage and history? That’s double cool points in my book.
1) Custom-made
I wanted to have a photo here of an amazing beer fridge I thought I saw at the Auckland Food Show, from Vintec, which had different shelves at different temperatures. However, when I went on their website, there wasn’t any such fridge and I began to think it was just a cheese sampling induced dream. So I put ‘beer’ in their product search – the only fridge that came back had a maximum temperature of 10C, which isn’t ideal for a Stout-lover. In fact, there weren’t many fancy beer fridges that could be revealed by a cursory search on the net. It seems, that as in many things, the beer geek needs to be independent and innovative. Much like the guy in the video below.
While his fridge is for storage and home brewing, I think this might be close to my dream fridge – custom-made to fit into my house and with handy serving taps. Now I just need the money for the house and the installation – not to mention the beer! It’s a good thing dreams are free.
I can’t believe the old goldmine is number 2 ! I mean seriously?
You’d put it higher? Then you’d have to live near/above an abandoned gold mine. And they tend to be out in the sticks, away from good beer supplies. But then I’d have my own supplies…It’s a dilemma.
Goldmine ?? maybe not,but a cellar, thats just as good. Worked with a guy a few years ago who spent 3 years digging a cellar under his house. Made a hole in the floor under his dinning room table and went from there. Ended up with a cellar 2 meters high by 3 meters wide and roughly 6 meters in length. Lined and with shelving it was perfect for the storeage of his wine collection.
I would love to do the same here, but the water table in this area, close to the Avon River, is to high. Therefore I have to make do with a fridge in the garage and a shelf in the coolest corner for my crates of homebrew.
I wish that I had a similar problem. The wee area under my house seems perfect for storing beer. It is very dark and doesn’t appear to fluctuate in temperature much. In fact, there is currently a lot of beer that doesn’t technically belong to me down there! THAT is a constant test of my self control. I obtained a beer fridge this week (an old Kelvinator that was my wife’s family fridge since the 70′s) that seems to have two settings: Fricken’ cold and off.
It depends which sticks. But I didnt know this dream list has to be quite so grounded in practicalities. The Goldmin option is pretty awesome.
I know someone who has just renovated and put a cellar accessed by a wee stair case from the kitchen in. Its very cool. Literally actually which is good as it get pretty hot in Waikanae.
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